


Deleted Scenes from Marauders No. 1 (2019)

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Deleted Scenes, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Humor, Innuendo, M/M, Magic Fingers, Pirates, Sailing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 18:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21202145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: Monsteras are actual tropical fruit (and delicious). "The monster is the thing we have to save" comes from Astonishing X-Men 68, written by Marjorie Liu. Many thanks to my astonishing beta reader.





	Deleted Scenes from Marauders No. 1 (2019)

DELETED SCENES FROM MARAUDERS NO. 1 (2019)

*

(Another note found in another bottle, afterwards.)

I could be Illyana’s backpack. That sounds like fun.

If I were Illyana’s backpack she could take me anywhere with her and I could just curl up around her all day and go back and forth to the island whenever she wanted. 

We could build Illyana a really big backpack so Lockheed would fit. Backpack inside a backpack.

Naked backpacking is not a thing. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Kitty. Naked backpacking is Not a Thing. Don’t knock it. Until you’ve tried it. It’s not … could we make it a thing?

[Crossed out.]If I were Illyana’s backpack would I ever turn back?

Backpack with packer. Don’t let your pack go slack. Don’t let your packer or your backpack lack. Don’t take backpack flack. [Illegible.]

[Crossed out] If we backpack together, who’s on top?

*

“Arroo, Lockheed? Never heard you say that before. Do you mean you’ve developed a pocket, like a kanga-roo? That’s a good dragon. Is that a fish in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”

*

The flat sea stretches out behind them. Sun polishes the absolutely calm water.

“Yes, Lockheed, those are ribs. From Memphis. No, they are not human ribs. No, you can’t eat any of them. They’re for Logan. Logan, who could disembowel you. Of course he won’t. But he could. I won’t eat them either. That’s right. They’re pork. How about some more sushi?”

*

The purple dragon flaps above her, concerned. She yanks the boom until it fits the wind. She knows how to sail, even half drunk. Three-quarters drunk. Three sheets to the wind.

Kate takes out the amber bottle and stares at what’s left: partly whiskey, mostly air. The bottleneck reflects the sun.

The purple dragon flaps again. “You’re telling me I had enough for today, Lockheed, aren’t you?”

His beak moves up and down briefly. Yes.

“I know, if I keep drinking at this rate Imma used up Logan’s stash, baby dragon. I know. But just a finger won’t hurt. Just one finger.”

She grabs a tumbler from the cabinet beneath the aft deck and pours herself the requisite finger of Logan’s favorite liquor. 

Lockheed shakes his head, diagonally. He’s not sure if he should prevent her. “One finger. Two fingers.” Kate pauses and shades her eyes with the hand that’s not holding the glass. “If a girl like me is going to live in freedom on the high seas, matey, sometimes a girl needs…. just a finger. Two fingers.”

*

Kate beaches the boat by herself—she knows how to do this sort of thing from sailing camp—but what’s in the hold might take a few trips to unload. “Can anyone give me a hand?” she shouts.

Lockheed glides down to her shoulder almost immediately.

*

“I’d like to meet these top men,” Bobby says.

“I’d bet my, uh, bottom dollar,” Kate answers.

“Discussing top issues of the day, I see,” says Illyana, who’s just come back to the island herself, from a gate that leads to Panama; she’s holding some sort of green, scaly, banana-like fruit, peeling scales off and taking tiny bites out of the sides.

“Trying to get to the bottom of them, I suppose” says Bobby, glancing at Illyana knowingly. “I mean, you know how Kitty always comes out on top.”

“Do I, though,” Magik says, looking down her nose at Iceman. The Russian mutant’s boots make her taller than Bobby; otherwise they’d see eye to eye. “Do I?”

Kate and Illyana exchange their own glances and Bobby realizes that Kate is looking for clues; she’s the one who gets told what to do, the one who takes direction from her lover, when her lover is Magik. And only then.

“Where did you get that and what is it and what—“ asks Iceman, changing the subject; as gay as he is, as close as he has become to his last-ever girlfriend, he’d rather not see the two of them just flirting and ignoring him. 

Kate stares. It’s long and green and thin and tapers at one end. “Is that a Krakoa finger?” she asks, her voicing trilling slightly. “Roomie, are you giving me the finger?”

“Latest shipment of tropical fruit,” Illyana says. “I gave most of the mangoes to the kids.”

“That’s not a mango, though,” Kate says.

“It’s a monstera. You can give away the other fruit, but the monstera is the thing you have to save.”

Illyana pauses, as if to let the mission sink in. Then she goes on. “Also I am totally giving you the finger. If that’s what you want.”

Kate cracks up. It’s been a long trip.

*

"Hello, Emma." The White Queen, in boots and a pantsuit, stands on a street-- it could be the West Village-- holding open a white limousine door.

"Why haven't you asked the others to stop calling you 'Kitty'?" Emma asks, over her shoulder.

"Because the X-Men can do a lot of astonishing things, but I don't think they can do that. Not right away anyway. Look at what happens when trans people come out. Half the time cis people take _years,_ and the ones who get it right immediately spend so much apologising that you end up impatient and feel bad for them. We're not really meeting to discuss my name, are we?"

*

Kate asks Emma, “Why does everyone trust me?”

“Because you can’t lie to save your life,” Emma says. “Because you’ve been dating a telepath and a magic user for who knows how many years and you still haven’t learned to conceal your feelings, let alone your thoughts. Look, you’re blushing right now.”

*

“Kitten,” Storm cautions her. “Does Logan know you’re into his stash?”

“Not unless you told him what I’m into.”

“Kitten!”

“Ororo, you were the first person I told. Don’t act all surprised now. Anyway, that is definitely not Logan’s stash.”

“I was referring,” Storm says carefully, “to the whiskey.”

“Oh, the whiskey. In that case, I AM the stash.”

*

“Pyro! I’m glad you—oh. That accent. You’re the original Pyro?” Iceman turns back to contemplating the whitecaps.

“He dated the other one,” Kate tells Storm, and shrugs, briefly.

“Original—mate, there’s another one? With my powers? Fair dinkum? And that Pyro’s a Sheila?” St. John Allerdyce stares directly at Bobby, still yawning.

“You have been gone for a while,” Kate says. “Also, stop talking like that.”

“No worries,” Pyro says. “You reckon?” Storm rolls her eyes.

* 

“So many of our people are trapped in hostile territories,” Storm tells herself, and Kate, and Bobby, and all of us, sunset turning the sky rose-gold behind her. “How could I turn my back on them? How could I turn my back on you?”

It’s a good feeling, till Kate turns to face her older friend. “Ororo! What’s happened to your skin? Your face?” Close up on Kate. She’s worried. Could that be Mystique?

“Aftereffects of the Russia fight. That guy with the armor had some sort of blanching deforming ray.”

“It’s disturbing. You don’t look like you. Should we talk to Josh next time we’re on the island?”

“Don’t worry, Kitten. I’ll look like myself again soon.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

“I am with you. But you deal with Emma. I want no part of her.”

“The White Queen. Got it.” Kate stops. “You’re sure this isn’t her fault?”

“I’m sure.”

*

“Is that your tail in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Lockheed settles down in front of Kate and takes his tail out of his pouch, nodding. Both, Kate thinks. He’s also happy to see me.

Illyana’s right behind him. “Both,” she says. “Definitely it’s both.”

“I didn’t mean—“ Kate blushes. But, of course, she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Monsteras are actual tropical fruit (and delicious). "The monster is the thing we have to save" comes from Astonishing X-Men 68, written by Marjorie Liu. Many thanks to my astonishing beta reader.


End file.
